


in the bleak midwinter

by yrbeecharmer



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Angst, Christmas Eve, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Presents, Gen, Hazel Levesque is a Good Sibling, It's both!, New Rome (Percy Jackson), Nico is trying to be, Saturnalia, Sibling Bonding, references to Lost Hero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:00:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28002795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yrbeecharmer/pseuds/yrbeecharmer
Summary: It's Hazel's first Christmas of her new life, and she's determined to share it with her new brother.
Relationships: Hazel Levesque & the Fifth Cohort, Nico di Angelo & Hazel Levesque
Comments: 11
Kudos: 50





	in the bleak midwinter

**Author's Note:**

> Merry (belated) Christmas to anybody who celebrates! This was a) supposed to be done before Christmas and also b) originally going to be just a Christmas fic, but then it became about equally a New Rome Saturnalia/Hazel's birthday fic. So, here's some death babies repressing trauma and trying to bond over the holidays.
> 
> (FYI, my Saturnalia research was pretty cursory and not remotely intended to be representative of the real holiday/traditions, but like... many bits of canon fall apart pretty quickly as soon as you apply real historical research so who even knows how New Rome would celebrate Roman holidays...)

  


When Hazel asked Nico if he would be back in New Rome for Christmas, he gave her a very weird look. Like he was surprised. Hazel wasn’t sure why that question would come as a surprise—it seemed like a pretty reasonable thing for one sibling to ask another, come December. 

But on the other hand, part of getting used to her brother so far had been getting used to his reactions not quite fitting with what she might expect. Nico was always kind and courteous to Hazel, and did seem to genuinely care about getting to know her—but he never revealed much of himself in the process. There were a lot of gaps between them, a lot of things Hazel couldn’t understand because she simply didn’t know. 

“Do you not celebrate Christmas?” she asked. She had learned lately that was much more common in this new century, or maybe just this new part of the country. Lavinia, one of the other _probatii_ in the Fifth, was Jewish, so she obviously didn’t, and lots of the legacy kids who had grown up in New Rome didn’t make much of Christmas even if their mortal ancestors had been Christian. But Nico wasn’t a legacy any more than Hazel was. “I thought you must be Catholic, since—” Well, since his name was _Nico di Angelo._

“Oh, no, I—I am. Or I was.” Nico looked away, eyes darkening a little. “It doesn’t really matter so much, does it? Now we know about the real gods.” Something about the way he said it made Hazel wonder if he was trying to convince himself far more than her. 

“I guess not,” she said. “But I don’t think that means we have to give up on Christmas, right?” Nico shrugged. 

“What about your birthday?” he asked. 

They’d told each other their birthdays not long after Nico brought Hazel here, because she had asked—all the information she had about Nico was only because she had asked—so she knew that while she was a little more than three years older than him in historical years, physically they were about the same age. Hazel wasn’t sure about mentally. It sounded like to Nico, all that time in the hotel where he’d spent it hadn’t felt like more than a couple of months at the very most. Hazel had spent almost seventy years conscious in Asphodel. But it wasn’t like time had felt normal in the Fields, either—not when there wasn’t a lot to look at, and no one to talk to. And even if he was technically younger, Nico didn’t feel like a _little_ brother so much, as Hazel got to know him. He’d been in this modern world longer than she had, so he knew his way around it; he had far more to teach her than she had him. He seemed older than his years, too. Older and sadder. 

At any rate, they’d agreed they were both _about_ thirteen, soon to turn _about_ fourteen this winter. Hazel’s birthday would come first—soon, in fact, on December 17th. 

“Usually we could only afford one, so we just celebrated Christmas,” she explained. “I don’t make much of it.” Sammy always had, but she tried not to think about him, not wanting to slip into a flashback in the middle of a conversation. Again. 

“Oh.” Nico nodded. “Because of the Depression?” 

“Sometimes,” Hazel said. “But there still wasn’t a lot of money after it, either.” 

“Huh.” Now he frowned, looking a little uncertain. Hazel supposed this was something maybe _he_ wouldn’t understand. For all they were both children of another time—kind of because of it, with what that time had been like—there were some differences that she doubted they could ever _really_ bridge. 

Nico had said he didn’t remember much about his childhood, but he knew he’d grown up some in Italy and some in Washington, because his grandfather worked there doing something important for the Italian government. Hazel could do the math. Her mysterious white half-brother had grown up with money. _Evil_ money, from another one of those evil men in the fascist countries. Hazel didn’t much care for any of that. 

But at first Nico had been the only person she knew, and she owed him her life—more literally than most. Besides, he’d had two years in this century so far, and in that time he seemed to have learned better than whatever he’d been taught before. Where and how, she couldn’t say—Nico would answer her questions about _things_ in the modern day as best he could, explaining modern cars and cell phones and television, but he would always find a way to avoid actually talking about the last two years of his own life. 

“Well, now there’s no reason you can’t have both,” he said now. “And I can be here for Christmas, if that’s what you want.” 

“It is,” Hazel decided firmly. “I think we should celebrate together. Families should be together for the holidays.” Nico’s mouth twisted into a kind of sad smile. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Families should.” 

When Hazel mentioned her birthday to her cohort, once Nico had left again, Gwen looked much more excited than Hazel would have expected. 

“Your birthday is December 17th?” she said. “That’s Saturnalia!” 

“—Oh,” Hazel said. “I didn’t know.” 

“And I bet you thought having a Christmastime birthday was bad,” Dakota joked. “I mean, if you were Christian before. Were you?” For a second Hazel panicked, thinking he’d found out her secret somehow—but then she realized maybe he just meant before coming to New Rome, since religion got kind of complicated for a lot of people when they found out they were demigods. 

“More or less,” she said carefully. “We weren’t big churchgoers, but we celebrated Christmas and Easter.” Except the last year of her life, but once again she didn’t dwell on either. 

“Well, you’re still welcome to celebrate those if you like,” Gwen told her. “Community events here are all for our versions of Roman holidays, but plenty of people in the legion observe other ones too.” Hazel had surmised as much already, since a few of the younger kids in the Legion had gone out trick-or-treating in Berkeley on Halloween, and Lavinia had set up a little menorah on her footlocker this past Friday. 

“I think my brother’s going to come for Christmas,” she said. Gwen smiled. 

“Oh, that’s nice!” she said. “And just because your birthday’s Saturnalia doesn’t mean you can’t have some birthday things, too. We’ll have cake if you like.” 

“And sing Happy Birthday,” Lavinia put in from the card table where she and Jacob were playing Go Fish. 

“I won’t sing,” Jacob promised. “Nobody wants to hear that.” 

“Oh, please,” said Gwen. “I’m sure you’re a fine singer.” Jacob shook his head, mouthing a dramatic _nope_ that had Lavinia snickering. “Being a Saturnalia baby has to be a good sign for you,” Gwen said to Hazel. Hazel doubted that. 

“What _is_ Saturnalia?” she asked. She was sure she’d heard it mentioned before, but unlike a lot of the other kids in the Legion, she hadn’t grown up with these things—nor spent time at the Wolf House to learn it before joining up, since Nico had brought her straight here and Jason and Reyna had just taken her in. She’d been here a few months now, but the litany of Roman holidays and traditions New Rome observed one way or another was still confusing to her. 

“The Feast of Saturn. A big party,” Dakota explained. “It’s _awesome._ There’s lots of food, and a bunch of ancient traditions. Some of them are probably where modern Christmas traditions come from, like exchanging presents, and some of them are just Saturnalia stuff, like, we elect the _Saturnalicus princeps_ to be in charge of the festivities, and they order people to do funny dares and stuff.” 

“There are also some ancient traditions we don’t do,” said Gwen. “No sacrificial gladiator combat, for one thing.” 

“Octavian’ll probably break out the fancy stuffed animals, though,” Dakota said. Gwen rolled her eyes. 

“He doesn’t just sacrifice a ragdoll in place of a human?” Hazel joked. Lavinia and Marcus both snorted. 

“Gods, don’t _ever_ say that in front of him,” Gwen warned her, “you’ll give him ideas.” 

  


“Centurion Dakota!” Michael Kahale yelled. “Do the worm!” 

“Do the _what?_ ” Hazel asked as Dakota groaned and flopped to the stone pavement of the Forum, where he continued to flop some more. 

“The worm,” said Gwen, looking at her with some confusion. “You’ve never heard of the worm?” Hazel shook her head. “You really have led a sheltered life, huh,” Gwen observed. Hazel just shrugged. “It’s a dance move. Dakota is really bad at it.” 

“So this isn’t what it’s supposed to look like?” 

“No, absolutely not.” Gwen laughed. “You should get Jason to show you when he gets back. You didn’t hear it from me, cause he gets embarrassed, but _he’s_ good at it.” Hazel giggled. She hadn’t known Jason long before he disappeared on whatever secret quest most everyone figured he must be doing, but she had trouble picturing the serious Praetor doing anything like Dakota’s flailing. 

“This is abuse of power, Kahale!” Dakota yelled as he got back to his feet, face bright red. 

“That’s the point of the _Saturnalicus princeps!_ ” Michael declared. “Abuse of power in the name of bringing joy to all!” Just as Dakota had explained, the Legion had held an election—a very casual one, not like when they elected senators—and Michael had won. Now he was sitting on the “Saturnalia throne,” a large gold-painted chair wired with flashing multicolored lights, and ordering people to do silly things. 

“Silly” seemed to be the mood of Saturnalia generally. All the officers were wearing brightly-colored robes Gwen called _synthesis_ —hers was turquoise, Dakota’s was reddish-purple—and a lot of the lower-ranking legionnaires were in wild outfits too. Lavinia was wearing a purple suit jacket over an orange and green floral shirt—all the more eye-watering since yesterday she’d gotten Hazel and Gwen to help her bleach her hair, then dyed it bubblegum pink. 

“Your brother’s here!” she announced as she ran past them, chasing after a faun who was holding a purple top hat Hazel was pretty sure she’d seen on Lavinia’s bed this morning. 

“My brother? Oh!” He wasn’t hard to spot when Hazel looked around—Nico’s dark clothing stood out even more than usual next to all the bright colors. As Hazel ran over to greet him, he looked like he was wondering what on earth he’d stumbled into. 

“Hey,” Nico said, accepting her hug kind of awkwardly. He always hugged like it didn’t quite come naturally. “Happy birthday. I didn’t miss it, right?” 

“Nope, it’s today!” 

“Oh, good.” When Hazel pulled back, Nico looked relieved. Also confused. Kind of overwhelmed, generally. “Um—what’s going on? Is this all for your birthday?” 

“No, no—gods, can you imagine if we did this for everyone’s birthday? What a mess.” 

“Would make it hard to get any training done,” Nico said. 

“It would. No, this is Saturnalia,” Hazel explained. “It’s, um… a holiday. Dakota knows more,” she added as her centurion wandered by, now freed from the _Saturnalicus princeps’_ order and clutching a goblet of Kool-Aid. 

“Emo-bassador!” he exclaimed. Nico rolled his eyes. “Welcome to the Feast of Saturn.” Now Nico frowned. 

“Saturn? But—isn’t that—” he paused, like he was trying to figure out how to word the question. “The Titan who just tried to—” 

“Shh, shh. We don’t have to talk about that,” Dakota said. “Saturnalia is about the good old days of Saturn. The Golden Age. Before the whole, uh… eating-certain-people’s-dads thing.” 

“Right,” said Nico, still looking kind of suspicious. “Among other _things_.” 

“We celebrate Saturnalia out of tradition, Ambassador,” said a voice that made Hazel’s spine snap upright out of instinct: Reyna had walked over to join them. She must have overheard. “It’s less of a religious holiday than it was for our ancestors—kind of like the way a lot of mortals celebrate Christmas,” she added. “It’s good for morale. Everyone benefits from letting loose once in a while.” Hazel had trouble imagining Reyna letting loose, ever; even today she had her Praetor’s badge and purple cape pinned to her scarlet _synthesis_. 

Nico nodded. Before anyone could say anything else, 

“You, Ambassador of Pluto!” Michael bellowed from his golden throne. Nico’s forehead creased as he looked up at the older centurion. 

“What?” he asked warily. 

“As _Saturnalicus princeps,_ I order you to…” Michael looked at the gathered group of them with narrowed eyes, smiling wickedly. “Kiss Praetor Ramirez-Arellano!” 

Nico froze, wide-eyed. He looked at Hazel. He looked at Dakota. Then, with a terrified gulp, he looked up at Reyna, who sighed and turned her most withering, disappointed Praetor look on Michael. Hazel hadn’t experienced that look, but she sure did have a healthy fear of it. 

“It can be on the cheek,” Michael backtracked. Reyna shook her head. 

“The Ambassador of Pluto is not bound by the Legion’s rules, even those of our celebrations,” she said loudly. Nico breathed a sigh of relief, shoulders dropping back to their normal slouch. “Let’s not run the risk of offending him or his father any more than this holiday probably already does, Centurion Kahale.” 

“That’s _Princeps_ Kahale today—” 

“And tomorrow, I’ll still be Praetor Ramirez-Arellano,” Reyna said smoothly. “A very wise observation, _Princeps._ ” She winked at Nico and Hazel. “In place of a kiss from the Ambassador of Pluto, I will accept whatever message he has come to relay.” 

“Boring!” someone who sounded an awful lot like Don the faun yelled. 

“Oh,” said Nico, going a little stiff again now that everyone in the vicinity was looking at him. “Um. I just came to wish my sister a happy birthday.” Reyna raised her eyebrows, looking at Hazel. 

“Oh, Hazel, it’s your birthday? You didn’t say.” 

“Yes,” Hazel said. 

“We’re going to have cake,” Dakota explained. Reyna smiled. 

“Good,” she said. “Happy birthday, Hazel. I’m glad your brother could make it. Ambassador,” she added, with a polite nod to Nico, before she walked off again, saying something about needing to “make sure the Second doesn’t light anything on fire.” 

“You’re kinda lucky Jason’s missing,” Dakota observed. “That could’ve been worse.” 

“Why?” said Hazel. “He wouldn’t have ordered him to kiss _Jason,_ would he?” She knew that was less scandalous now than it would have been in her old life, but it still seemed much less like an innocent dare. Maybe it was just that she wasn’t quite used to it. 

“It’s happened before.” Dakota shrugged. “It wouldn’t be a big deal. Saturnalia dares aren’t that serious.” Nico winced. 

“... Yeah,” he said. “I’d still rather avoid them. And I should, uh—go pay respects at my father’s shrine. Hazel, will you come with me?” 

“—Sure!” Hazel said as he turned and started to walk away, hastening to catch up. Nico wasn’t _too_ much taller than her, just a couple inches, but he did walk very fast. “I’m sure Dakota didn’t mean anything by that,” she said as they made their way out of the Forum and down the Via Praetoria. Once they were away from people she added in a quieter voice, “things are different nowadays.” 

“I know,” Nico said, eyes fixed firmly on the road. “Why is everyone wearing such bright colors?” he asked, changing the subject. 

“Tradition, I guess.” Hazel looked down at her own outfit—a yellow shirt and blue overalls. Pretty dull, really, next to what some people were wearing. “If I’d known I would’ve told you, so you could dress up too. You _do_ stand out a little, you know?” 

“Gee, thanks.” Nico’s mouth finally quirked up again. “I wouldn’t have been able to dress up anyway. This—” he held up his arm, in the sleeve of his dark brown aviator jacket—“is the most brightly-colored I get.” 

Temple Hill was quiet today, with most everyone down in the Forum for the festivities. As the children of Pluto approached their father’s shrine, Hazel realized Nico’s black sword was leaning against the outer wall. It was kind of hard to distinguish from the rest of the obsidian exterior from far away. 

“You’ve already been here,” she said. 

“Just to leave my sword before I went into town,” Nico explained. “I didn’t need an altercation with Terminus today.” That Hazel could understand—no one ever needed an altercation with Terminus _any_ day. 

“So now you need to pay your respects?” 

“Yeah. But mostly I wanted to get away from the crowd.” Nico paused and clipped his scabbard back onto his chain belt before they walked into the shrine. 

“You’re not staying, then.” If he was putting his weapon back on, he wouldn’t be able to go back over the Pomerian Line. 

“I can’t stay too long,” Nico said. He never did, Hazel supposed, but— 

“Won’t you at least stay long enough for birthday cake?” she asked. Paying her birthday any mind had been _his_ idea anyway. 

“I—” Nico paused, looking conflicted and kind of far away all of a sudden. Now Hazel looked at him up close, without any distractions, she realized his eyes were a little grimmer than usual, the circles under them darker, his jaw tighter. “I guess I could,” he said. “Birthday cake—I mean—yeah.” His voice came out a little strangled. Nico was unreadable at the best of times, but right now Hazel had absolutely _no_ idea what was going on in her brother’s head. 

“Is something happening?” she asked. “Does, um—Pluto, does he have you on some kind of quest?” It never _quite_ felt right to call him _Father,_ let alone _Dad_ the way Nico did sometimes. 

“Not him,” Nico said carefully. “It’s—a friend. She has… there’s a problem, and I told her I’d help. So I’ve been out searching for—for someone.” 

“Not someone at Camp Jupiter?” Hazel asked. Nico never gave her straight answers when she asked about the things he did when he wasn’t at camp, so she had learned sometimes it was better to ask what he _wasn’t_ doing. Not that the process of elimination helped much when she didn’t know all the possibilities to start, but at least it could clarify the ones she did. 

“No.” Nico looked out over Temple Hill, eyes roving over the shrines—Diana, Minerva, Neptune. Rising above all the others, Jupiter Optimus Maximus. “There still hasn’t been any news about Praetor Grace, has there?” But his eyes were fixed back on the Temple of Neptune. 

“—No,” Hazel said, even more confused now. “Does your—whatever you’re doing, this person you’re looking for—do they have something to do with Jason?” 

“I don’t know.” Nico shook his head. “Probably not. Forget I asked. It’s not important. What’s important is your birthday.” Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a package, a rectangle kind of clumsily wrapped in yellow paper with colorful polka dots. “Here. You don’t have to open it now, you can wait until you have cake if you want—” 

“No, no, I want to open it.” Hazel took the package and started picking at the tape, not wanting to tear the paper. She didn’t have any wrapping paper—if she was careful, she could reuse this for _his_ birthday, a month from now. Nico watched her, looking kind of bemused. 

“You could just rip it.” 

“You don’t save your wrapping paper?” Hazel asked, then—“oh, of _course_ you wouldn’t.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nico frowned. 

“Oh, I’d never throw anything away if it could be reused,” Hazel said, trying to keep a light tone. “We didn’t all grow up in white families with money.” She’d never actually pushed back on him with things like this before—she wasn’t quite sure how he would react. 

Nico looked down. “I don’t—well—I guess we probably did have money,” he said. “I don’t really remember growing up either way, but I suppose that’s fair.” Okay. Not a _bad_ response. He wasn’t angry—which wasn’t a high bar, but it felt decent when Hazel hadn’t really known what to expect. 

Then Hazel managed to get all the tape open, and the paper unfolded around a metal tin of colored pencils. She stared down at the tin, head swimming, trying _very_ hard not to think about the last time a white man with death-dark eyes had given her colored pencils for her birthday. A year ago—sixty-eight years ago. She didn’t need a flashback right now. 

This wasn’t really anything like that, anyway, Hazel told herself firmly. From Pluto, the father she’d never met before in her life, that gift had felt like a brush-off—but from Nico, her brother, a boy who for all his strange secretiveness had been looking out for her ever since they walked out of Asphodel, it was the opposite. This was more thoughtful: 

“I wasn’t sure what to get you,” he was saying uncertainly, “cause I know you’re almost always in training or on duty here—but you said you liked to draw, before, so I thought maybe those would be good. They’re supposed to be nice ones, and I figured the metal case would be more durable, you know, for being in the Legion.” 

“I think it’ll be perfect,” Hazel said. “Thank you.” 

“Oh, good.” Nico’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly. “Good. I mean, you’re welcome.” 

“I lost the ones I had when, you know.” Hazel met his eyes pointedly. Nico nodded. 

“Yeah,” he said. “I know.” He looked into their father’s shrine, face unreadable again. 

“I have something for you, too,” Hazel said, slipping the tin into one of the big pockets in her overalls. They weren’t very fashionable, but they were utilitarian on days when she didn’t have to be in armor. 

“What?” Nico said, looking back at her again, eyebrows furrowed. “Why? It’s _your_ birthday.” 

“Yeah, but it’s also Saturnalia, and on Saturnalia people give each other presents—well, I don’t know if they really count as _presents,_ ” Hazel amended. “They exchange _sigillaria._ They’re these little statues of the gods, see?” All around the forum, every shop had seemed to have a rack of the tiny figures. Most were ceramic, some were glass, and a few had _sigillaria_ cast in metal. Hazel had found a silver Pluto and thought of her brother immediately. Now she held it out to him. “So this one’s Pl—our father. I think it should be safe,” she said. “I mean, I bought it, it didn’t come from the earth or anything, so I don’t _think_ it’s cursed—are you okay?” Nico’s eyes were very wide. If she didn’t know better, Hazel would have thought her brother was about to cry. 

“Yes,” he said, and swallowed. “I’m fine. This—it’s cool. Thank you.” Tentatively he took the little Pluto from her hand and cradled it in his own, looking at it for another moment, before he pocketed it. 

True to his word, Nico stayed long enough to have birthday cake with the Fifth Cohort, and no longer. As everyone headed back to the barracks, Hazel paused to say goodbye to her brother. 

“I’ll be back on Christmas Eve, like I promised,” he said. “I’ll meet you at the shrine, okay?” 

“Okay.” Hazel gave him a hug, and again he returned it awkwardly. “Good luck with your quest.” 

“Thanks.” Nico’s mind was clearly somewhere else already, but he gave her a smile. “See you in a week.” Then he melted into the darkness and was gone. 

  


“What’s… panna-tone?” Lavinia asked, peering over Hazel’s shoulder in the bakery off the Forum where Gwen had suggested she look. “I thought that had something to do with paint colors.” 

“Panettone. It’s an Italian bread…cake… thing,” Hazel explained. Gwen had helped her do some research on the computer in the university library—those were still a little much for Hazel—and she hoped the information she’d gotten was right. “I want to get one for my brother, for Christmas.” 

“Oh, is your brother Italian?” Lavinia asked. “... I mean, now that I say it, I guess he must be, since his name’s Nico di Angelo.” Hazel laughed. 

“Yep. Must be.” 

“Looks tasty,” Lavinia said, eyeing the description placard under the large round cakes: citrus-flavored cake, studded with chocolate. “Is this strictly a sibling bonding thing, or will the rest of us get some too?” 

“It is a sibling thing, but maybe,” Hazel said. “It’s his Christmas present, but I don’t know—they’re bigger than I thought they’d be. If we have leftovers, you’ll be the first to know.” 

“Sweet,” Lavinia said, taking the coffee and pastry she’d ordered. “Keep me posted.” With that, she skipped back out of the bakery. 

“Did I hear you’re interested in a panettone, Miss?” the kind-looking cashier asked Hazel as she stepped up to the front of the line. 

“Yes,” Hazel said firmly. “Yes, please.” 

Hazel _hoped_ Nico would like the panettone, she thought as she carried it back to her bunk the night before Christmas Eve. It wasn’t like she had to hide her brother’s Christmas present from him, since he didn’t live here—but hiding it from Dakota, _that_ was going to be a trial. 

It was hard to know what to get someone who didn’t let slip much information about himself, and Hazel honestly wasn’t sure where Nico lived. He’d mentioned something in passing about his room once, but she knew his mortal mother was long dead, so the only place she could think of for him to _have_ a room was their father’s palace in the Underworld. Nico was his Ambassador, after all. If he _was_ returning there between his visits to Camp Jupiter and his mysterious missions out in the world... Hazel figured it was better to err on the side of caution, with Pluto, so she wasn’t inclined to give Nico some token of her existence to take to their father’s house, where he might see it and be reminded. 

Sweets, though, he could just eat up here, and when he went back down there Pluto would never know the difference. Hazel also wasn’t sure how Nico felt about foods from his childhood—or most anything, really—but for _her,_ being able to ask the spirits in the mess hall for foods her mother used to cook in New Orleans, or that she could get at the soda shop down the street when she or Sammy had a little pocket change, had so far been the one connection to her past that brought anything besides sorrow. She had to be careful about it, because smells and tastes could trigger flashbacks even quicker than thoughts sometimes, but when that part worked out okay, the rest was nice. 

Of course, she supposed she didn’t know for sure if panettone even had been a food from Nico’s childhood—it was just Italian, and Hazel just hoped if she was wrong that he wouldn’t take offense to the presumption—but even if it wasn’t, it would still be tasty and Christmas-y. That was the plan, anyway. 

Now if he’d just come to camp so they could eat it. Hazel kept checking the shrine all through Christmas Eve, but all morning and into the late afternoon Nico wasn’t there. A small, hurt part of her wondered if he’d forgotten—but mostly it made her worry something had happened to him. Nico hadn’t broken a promise before, not in Hazel’s experience. What if he had run into something on his quest that he couldn’t walk away from? Such things existed in the world; Hazel knew that better than _anyone_. Nico was a little older and certainly a more experienced fighter than she had been in Alaska, so he might not fail so easily, but he wasn’t exactly invincible either. 

For the first time, Hazel found herself _really_ wishing she had a way to contact her brother. His explanation of cell phones had been immediately followed by an explanation of why, as awesome as they were, demigods couldn’t use them, which struck Hazel as just unfair. And right now it felt dangerous, too. 

She ate dinner early, as soon as she got off her shift, and went up to Temple Hill to just wait at the shrine. This way, if Nico did make it on Christmas Eve like he’d said, she would be there to meet him. 

It was near-totally dark when Hazel got there. The light might be returning, but it was slow—they were still just a couple days out from the solstice, and the sun went down early. At least here in California “early” only meant around 5 in the evening, and the sun still rose in the morning, and at least it was—not _warm,_ exactly, but not so cold Hazel needed any more than a jacket to stay warm outside. It really wasn’t so bad when Hazel remembered Alaska, much as she was usually trying _not_ to remember Alaska. That first winter— 

They had left New Orleans the morning after Hazel’s birthday, the morning after that awful visit from Pluto, and they’d arrived in Alaska two days before the year ended. Hazel had spent Christmas on a train, where Queen Marie bought her a candy bar from the dining car for her present and promised her things would be better next year. 

Things weren’t, though—certainly not later, since next year’s Christmas never came for the Levesques, but even right away Hazel would have called it much worse. The first month of 1942, they’d been lucky to get six hours of light in a day; in Alaska, the sun rose in the late morning and set again mid-afternoon. And it wasn’t that Hazel minded the dark much, or at least she hadn’t used to, before. But the dark, and the bitter cold, and Queen Marie’s awful moods, and the _Voice_ — 

“Hey,” said a voice that wasn’t the Voice. A cold hand shook Hazel’s shoulder. “Hazel? Are you okay?” 

“What?” Hazel blinked awake, to find herself collapsed where she had been sitting on the roof of Pluto’s shrine, waiting for Nico, who was crouching over her—oh. 

“Did it happen again?” Nico asked, helping her sit up before he let go and sat down next to her. “The memory thing?” 

“Yeah. I was just thinking about last winter, you know, _my_ last winter, and…” Hazel’s stomach dipped with nausea, and she stopped talking, not wanting to lead herself back down that path. She felt awful enough as it was, waking up now. 

“Well—just don’t think about it again,” Nico said, echoing her instincts. They sat quietly for a minute while Hazel got her bearings enough to realize— 

“Oh, you made it! Thank the gods.” She threw her arms around her brother’s neck. His spine stiffened, then he returned the hug with the least caution she’d felt yet, squeezing her gently. “You didn’t say what time you’d be here, so I was getting a little worried.” 

“Oh. Sorry.” Nico drew back. “I got waylaid, but I’m fine.” 

“Any luck?” Hazel asked. 

“Still nothing. But I’m here.” Nico smiled grimly, not that he usually smiled any other way. “Merry Christmas.” 

“Merry Christmas!” Hazel replied. “Do you want your present? I know it’s only Christmas Eve, but—” 

“Sure, I don’t mind. Opening presents on Christmas Eve sounds fine to me. Is that for me?” Nico asked, eyeing the bakery box on the roof next to her. “It’s, um… a lot bigger than what I got you.” 

“Don’t worry about that. You’ll see why,” Hazel said, picking up the box and holding it out to him. Slipping whatever he had been about to take out of his pocket back into it, Nico tugged at the bow she had wrapped around the bakery box until it gave way. He peered inside. When he looked back up at Hazel, she was almost startled—for once, her somber, old-soul brother looked like an actual kid. 

“Is this panettone?” he asked, his accent slipping out a little more than usual. 

“Oh, good,” Hazel said, “you know it!” 

“Of course I do! I mean—” Nico’s face fell a little, but the happy light still lingered some. “I don’t have _specific_ memories, but I _know_ it. Can I—am I allowed to eat it?” 

“Yes, of _course_ ,” Hazel said, “it’s your present—oh, no,” she realized, “but I forgot to bring a knife.” 

“That’s okay,” Nico said, “we can just tear it. If you don’t mind.” 

“I don’t, I don’t. Not at all. Go ahead and tear it or whatever you want to do.” Hazel watched as he tore off a piece of the cake and bit into it like it was the food of the gods. Not for the first time, she wondered how often Nico actually ate anything—he always felt so bony when she hugged him. Plenty of the boys their age in the Legion had hollow legs, or at least that was what Gwen always said about Jacob and Marcus, but they mostly still managed to eat enough to have some meat on their bones. “Is it like you remembered?” she asked when Nico’s mouth wasn’t full anymore. 

“Sort of,” he said. “I think I remember it having raisins, not chocolate. But,” he added, “I think I like the chocolate better, actually. It’s great. Do you want some?” 

“It’s your present,” Hazel protested politely. 

“There’s no way I can eat all this,” Nico said, shaking his head. “Please—go ahead.” 

“Okay.” Hazel tore off some fluffy cake of her own. “Oh, gods, this is delicious.” 

“It really is. Thank you,” Nico said very seriously. “Do you want your present now?” 

“Sure.” Hazel wiped her hands on her jeans, figuring they weren’t bothering with table manners up here anyway. Nico closed the panettone box and reached into his pocket again. This time he pulled out a small, square box. 

“Here,” he said nervously as she opened it. “I hope you like them. If you don’t, I can go back and look for something else—” 

“Oh my gods,” Hazel murmured, looking at the earrings in the box. The stones in the gold settings weren’t _big_ diamonds by any measure, but still—“I can’t possibly—gods, Nico, these look _way_ too expensive.” 

“Oh, don’t worry about _that,_ ” Nico said. “Dad doesn’t really understand how mortal money works, I think, so he just gives me as much as I ask for.” 

“But he’s the god of wealth,” Hazel pointed out, confused. 

“Yeah, but for me he’s more—I mean—I don’t know why,” Nico backtracked. “I can’t explain it. But don’t worry about the price. Or think of it as being from Dad as much as from me, if you prefer.” That didn’t sit as well with Hazel as she thought he meant it to, but she brushed that feeling aside. “I just thought,” Nico added in less confident tones, “the silver figure you gave me—you were right. I don’t think it’s cursed. It doesn’t matter if you _touch_ precious metal and stones, when they come from elsewhere. So I thought, you should have some jewels of your own that aren’t cursed either.” 

“That’s so sweet.” Hazel wasn’t sure why that was so overwhelming. “ _Thank_ you, but I—my gift was _nothing_ compared to this.” 

“No, it was,” Nico said quietly. “Your gift was sweet, too. Literally, I mean, but seriously—I never would have expected it, and it’s wonderful. But, um—” his voice faded even more now. “There’s more to yours, too, if you look under them—” 

“There’s _more_?” 

“Nothing else fancy, I promise.” Nico watched as Hazel lifted the velvety backing with the earrings out of the box. Behind it was another set of earrings, these ones _much_ cheaper, she could tell by touching the metal and by looking at the mall shop label on the cardboard backing. They were silver plate, shaped like tiny skulls. 

“We’ll match!” Hazel realized, looking at the skull ring on Nico’s hand. 

“Yeah.” Nico smiled. This time the sadness behind it was back, and how. He twisted the ring around his finger. “The ring—it was the last present Bianca gave me. Well, except for—never mind. The point is, I wanted to give you something to match, for one of our first presents.” He met her eyes. “I hope that’s okay.” 

Hearing that soured it a little. Hazel wished it didn’t, knew it probably shouldn’t, but—she knew she wasn’t the sister Nico had wanted to find in the Underworld. She would never be Bianca, and she didn’t like to feel like Nico looked at her and just saw what she wasn’t. 

“Of course it’s okay,” she said, though, because it was Christmas. “Thank you.” The diamonds had nothing to do with Bianca, or anything else Hazel wasn’t—those were all about what Hazel _was._ They were a far more thoughtful gift than she had expected, really. At least there was that. “This Christmas is definitely a lot better than my last one,” she told Nico. He nodded. 

“Mine too. The last couple, actually.” He kicked his feet against the edge of the roof, looking out over camp rather than at Hazel as he added, “When she died—it was right before Christmas.” 

“Oh.” Hazel nodded slowly. “No wonder you haven’t celebrated Christmas in a few years.” 

“Yeah. Like you said, Christmas is for families, and I was… alone.” Nico made another one of those inscrutable faces. “I suppose last year I _was_ with family. Technically.” 

“In the Underworld?” Hazel guessed. Nico smiled grimly. 

“Yeah.” He glanced at her. “What about your last Christmas?” 

“We left for Alaska right before Christmas,” Hazel explained. Nico nodded, eyes understanding. Hazel didn’t really need to say anything else, which was good—she had already had one flashback tonight, after a long while without one. She would happily go the rest of her life without another if she had her way. 

Probably she wouldn’t—that wasn’t how things usually went—but she could hope. 

“My mother _was_ right, in the end,” she added. “She said next year would be better.” Laughing tasted bitter, like tarnished silver. “She just didn’t know how far away _next year_ would be.” 

Nico nodded again. To Hazel’s surprise, he offered his arm for a hug; she took it, sliding in against his side. Nico settled his arm around her shoulders. It didn’t seem any more comfortable for him than hugging ever did, but in a way that just made Hazel more grateful. They sat quietly for a while, there on the roof of their father’s shrine. 

“I think every year will get better,” Nico said quietly. “Every Christmas, I mean. Since we can spend them together now.” 

“Well, all _you_ have to do is come visit,” Hazel said. “I’ll be here.” 

“I’ll be… somewhere,” Nico said. He smiled at Hazel, a real smile. “For Christmas, somewhere can be here.” Hazel held out her right hand. Nico pulled away so he could extend his own, and his smile widened as they shook on it. “Do you want more panettone?” he asked. “Cause I do.” 

Eventually it got late enough that Hazel had to worry about curfew. Nico promised to still be there tomorrow morning, for Christmas Day, and gave Hazel the remaining chunk of panettone to sneak back into the barracks. Lavinia would be pleased. 

As she climbed down from the roof of the shrine and walked away down Temple Hill, Hazel found she felt kind of sad—she was headed towards the warmth and light of her cohort, while Nico still sat out here alone in the cold, dangling his legs off the roof, watching her go. There were still so many things she didn’t understand about her brother at all. And a lot of things he didn’t understand about her. Some things, probably they still never would. 

But a couple of those gaps had started to close, Hazel thought, and maybe by next Christmas they could close more. They had a whole year to do it—and a lot could happen in a year. Maybe next year, things really would be even better. 

  


**Author's Note:**

> @yrbeecharmer on tumblr.
> 
> Merry Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!


End file.
